


Wolf Like Me

by highestkingbambi



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: F/M, definitely going to be wrong, potential explanation of the quickening, season four speculation, the ship is mostly referenced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 15:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17469932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highestkingbambi/pseuds/highestkingbambi
Summary: Josh goes through the Quickening and needs to decide what that means for his future.





	Wolf Like Me

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration and title for this fic comes from the excellent TV on the Radio song [‘Wolf Like Me’](https://youtu.be/AYqJKQY8IQU)
> 
> I originally wanted to write this for The Welters Challenge, but the muse took me in a very different direction. It’s been a long time coming. This was written prior to season four starting.
> 
> Big ups to [OneEyedDestroyer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneEyedDestroyer) for encouraging me back when I started this and to [ohmarqueliot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmarqueliot) for checking over this unhinged mess and being a constant support while I complained my way through writing it.

_We begin our story in an abandoned abattoir on an overcast fall morning. The smell of rotting flesh and decay fills the crisp, post-dawn air. Unconscious on the killing room floor lies a man, naked but for the blood and viscera that coats his loose, pale skin. His name is Josh Hoberman. According to his birth certificate, he is 27 years old. For the second time in his mediocre life, he is missing, presumed dead._

_In the distance, sirens blare; however this is New York City, and it means nothing to Josh’s story. The only relevance being that the sound is the catalyst for his return to consciousness. He stirs quickly, the stench filling his nostrils while he grasps at imaginary layers of clothing to cover his unimpressive body. When he accidentally brushes his fingers against the decomposing remnants of a tattooed hand, he lets out a disarmingly feminine squeal. Panicking, he rides an invisible bicycle, unable to find purchase on the bloodstained floor._

Hold up. Are you trying to impersonate Rod Serling? You’re doing a terrible job, dude. And shut up. It’s cold. This is not an accurate representation of my penis. 

_What he does not yet know is that this blood is his own and that he is not in New York City. Not exactly. You see, there exists a plane between the living and the dead and it is in this lonely dimension that Josh Hoberman currently resides._

Wait. What, I’m dead? That’s not how this is supposed to go.

_With no memory of where he is, or how he got there, Josh fails to grasp his situation. He has to make a choice. Survive and live as a monster each full moon for the rest of his life, or die as a man._

Ahh. Shit. I forgot about that. You’re telling the story wrong though. You have to start at the beginning. 

1990\. Yonkers, New York. A legend is born. 

_Josh Hoberman is an idiot._

No, you can just fuck off right there. This is my story. I can tell it how I want to. 

_The longer he argues with an omniscient narrator, the less time he has to make his decision._

Fake Rod Serling has his microphone cable cut. 

_(Silence.)_

Suck it! I can narrate this thing myself. 

The incredible story of the great Josh Hoberman, by Josh Hoberman. 

So you’re probably wondering how I ended up half dead in an abandoned abattoir. That’s important, but you need to know a little background first before you start judging me. 

It all began after I got back from Fillory. In case you don’t know, Fillory is Narnia on hard drugs. Literally. I’m still having withdrawals from the opium in the air. Almost better than the drugs though is that in Fillory you can pretty much have sex with anything. And I’m not saying you should, but come on, as if you wouldn’t? The problem is after you’ve had sex with a Naiad and two Harpies (which I did by the way—high fives appreciated) after that, humans are a going to be a bit meh. So when I started making out with this werewolf chick, I wasn’t exactly going to say no. I figured no biggie, what could go wrong? 

Turns out, a lot. 

Apparently, lycanthropy can be sexually transmitted, and I didn’t use a condom, which wasn’t so bad at the time. We Hoberman’s have famously low sperm motility, and I already had herpes. 

Most people do. Don’t they?

Anyway, at first, it wasn’t so bad. Once a month I looked like a much more handsome Michael J Fox in Teen Wolf. Drove the ladies wild. Until Dean Fogg put me in a cage so I wouldn’t try and mark my territory all over Brakebills. But, I mean other than the cage, it was fine.

Things did start to take a turn for the worse when one of my best friends killed a God. Man, Quentin is a badass. Anyway, the rest of the Gods took away magic and things got weird—I met a me from the darkest timeline! Sweet jacket, LASIK, but everyone was dead and different me was stuck with this chick Marina—super hot but in the scary suck your balls into your body out of fear at the sight of her kind of way.

_Josh continues to waste his time, naively believing that he has more than a handful of moments left in his pathetic and short life._

Oh, come on. I was just getting to the exciting part!

_He passes out from blood loss._

No, I, oh wow that’s an unholy amount of blood. Maybe a little nap…

_With the scene set, and our protagonist mercifully quiet with the occasional snore as he sleeps his life away, we take a step back and consider how we reached this point._

_You may have been able to live your life without knowledge of magic and the supernatural. If you have, tune out now for your ignorance will save you from a lifetime of misery. For those already aware of the wonder and pointlessness of existence, we continue._

_In the months following his ill-fated werewolf copulation, Josh kept his lycanthropy under relative control with a delicate cocktail of antiretrovirals he liked to mix into his recreational medication and easily avoided the one action required to complete his transformation. While every one of his friends was at some point forced or inclined to take a life, he remained innocent of bloodshed. His party proclivities and uncanny ability to be forgotten by those he cares about left him out of the more dangerous aspects of their quest to restore magic._

_Unbeknownst to the majority of the magical community, Josh and his far more remarkable friends were successful in their quest. Magic was restored to magicians. At a price. Betrayal on two fronts cost them everything. Those responsible for the return of magic were rendered no more, their memories wiped and visages manipulated to avoid detection and exposure to magic. Scattered across the nation, Josh and his friends were lost to their new personas, their histories forgotten._

_What was inside, however, could not be altered. The strain of lycanthropy that had infected him that fateful day he stupidly refused to wear protection was overlooked. Left to grow without the enchanted antiretrovirals he had been taking since contracting the infection, it mutated within him, permanently bonding with his DNA. Unchecked, the lycanthropy evolved from a mild inconvenience to a major facet of his existence. All the while remaining a mystery to him._

_Losing days was nothing new to Josh Hoberman. Even under the pseudonym of Isaac the Uber Driver, he retained his penchant for the illicit, delving deeper into even harder drugs to cover up the confusion of his reality._

Put down the thesaurus Fake Serl; you sound like a real jerkwad.

_Josh has a brief return to consciousness. It does not last long._

Asshole. 

Man being mortally wounded really takes it out of you. 

_He wipes his brow with a bloodstained hand. His skin is cold, clammy and hardly feels like his own. Josh is starting to lose his tenuous connection to the plane of the living. He does not have long._

Alright okay, you’re probably in a better position to tell the story, but can you make it interesting at least? 

_Very well, if that is your last request._

_We skip forward in a story, a few months after the return of magic and the evening before this hideous abattoir became the scene of such violence._

_(Queue whimsical chiming to indicate a change of scene)._

The heavy door of a penthouse apartment slammed with vicious ferocity, while a pair of stilettoed feet marched toward an elevator. Right behind, the patter of well worn, off-brand, leather sneakers caught up, just in time to jump in the elevator with the owner of the stilettos. 

“Why are you following me?” Margo asked, hiding the pain in her voice with a disgruntled huff. The hint of a tear streamed down her face but was quickly brushed aside. “I don’t need your fucking sympathy.”

Rather than face her wrath, Josh looked down at his feet. The cracked leather of his shoes failed to interest him, but he knew Margo well enough to avoid eye contact until she had time to compose herself. “Safety in numbers,” he said finally, the end of his cliche cut off by the sound of the elevator as it announced their arrival on the ground floor. 

“Just because we fucked a few times while our minds were wiped...that—it doesn’t mean shit to me,” Margo said without turning to him. She stepped out of the elevator and flashed the clueless concierge an icy stare as she left the building. 

Josh trailed haplessly behind, choosing to ignore the vitriol in her tone. While the words probably rang true, it wasn’t his feelings he was worried about. It wasn’t his best friend—for want of a better term—that the rest of their tenuous group of mostly friendly comrades were seriously considering stabbing through the heart. 

“The way I see it, we have two choices,” Josh said as he jogged the few steps to catch up to her. “One. We search for an alternative. Or…Two. We get royally fucked up and search for an alternative.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bag of cocaine. “Either way, if you’re not ready to accept it, then neither am I.”

At the edge of the curb, Margo stopped and turned to face him. Half the street lamps had blown at some point, leaving them standing in relative darkness. Josh wasn’t sure what time it was—the group had been arguing for hours. It was another overcast night after a run of dreary overcast days. He could barely see Margo’s face despite their proximity, but it was impossible not to feel the weight of her concern. For the briefest moment he thought she might come into him for a hug, and maybe that thought did cross her mind, but if so it disappeared even faster than it arrived. She snatched the cocaine from his hand and shoved it into her pocket. “I need a fucking drink first.”

The penthouse they were hiding out in was located in a nice enough area, filled with wine and cocktail bars with clean interior design and healthy but uninspired dining options. In disguise, Josh had checked them out in the preceding days while four of the most intimidating women he had ever met in this timeline or another did their best to get along. The murderous stares that were thrown his way at the fourth mention of ‘Hakuna Matata’ had him convinced him that perhaps his optimism wasn’t going to be enough. The escape was hardly better. 

Margo had other plans. She hailed a taxi and reluctantly waited for him to jump in with her. Before he was completely inside, she barked directions at the driver, and they were off while he was still working out which side his seatbelt was on. 

“Wait, Josh, no!” Margo cried out as he clipped the harness into its lock. He looked back at her confused—if she didn’t want him to follow that was not the way he expected her to display it. 

“Sorry lovebirds,” the taxi driver said. “Boss has other plans for you tonight.”

While Margo fought with her own seatbelt that refused to unlock no matter how many times she tried to break it, Josh tried to see who it was that had taken them. The driver's face was turned away from them, and the rear view mirror angled right up at the roof. 

“These belts are enchanted as fuck,” she whispered to him, still straining against them even though she knew it was useless. “Must be those librarian dicks.” 

“Again?”

“No, moron, I’m just saying that because I don’t want to ruin my manicure,” she said sarcastically. “Of course it fucking is,” she reiterated with a sigh, and Josh could picture her wishing she had been kidnapped with anyone other than him. Not that he could blame her, he hadn’t really shown himself to be anything more than the coward who disappeared before the confrontation with the Beast. 

Only that wasn’t true. He’d snuck into the FU-Fighters camp and technically roofied them—for a good cause. And he’d gone to the fairy realm to rescue Margo and Fen (and no one needed to know that was more out of fear than bravery). Feeling something akin to confidence that wasn’t propped up by excessive drug taking, Josh looked at Margo with determination and cleared his throat. “Hey, you, yes, you the asshole in the front,” he said, quickly losing his steam as he realized he had no idea what he was doing. “Who are you? Where are you taking us?”

The taxi driver laughed. 

“Nice work, Hoberman, you really scared him.” Margo looked away from Josh, scanning the car for any sign of escape. There was none. 

They drove for a short time until they left the clean, upmarket streets of Marina’s neighborhood and found themselves surrounded by abandoned warehouses. Rusted tin sheets that once passed for roofing sat atop crumbling concrete walls. It was hard to believe places like these still existed in Manhattan, and Josh wasn’t in the mindset to find out why. 

“Get out.” The taxi driver ordered though he didn’t need to say anything. The doors on both sides of the taxi flew open, and their seat belts unbuckled, just in time for them to each be grabbed by outstretched arms. As Josh felt the cold air hit his skin, another set of hands pulled a dark pillowcase over his head. 

“Fucking amateurs, you can’t even do a kidnapping right,” Margo sighed from the other side of the vehicle. She somehow sounded more disappointed in their abductors’ mistakes than the predicament they were in. “Right, Hoberman?” 

Josh wasn’t sure why she had mentioned his name, or what she expected. He was too busy thinking about the fact that they were probably going to die and he was starving. It hadn’t been that long since he had last eaten. Maybe that was just a side effect of fear. 

“Right, Hoberman,” she repeated as if it were a secret code or something he was supposed to understand. He didn’t have that kind of relationship with her though. He wasn’t Eliot. 

Josh quickly tried to consider what Eliot would do. A little bit of whining, a lot of drinking. Not helpful. What else was his favorite deposed High King known for? Excessive snark. Of course. She was undermining their authority. “Right,” he said finally. “Have you never even watched a movie?”

Unable to find out if he had answered to her liking, Josh found himself dragged along the rough ground. His hands scrambled to find purchase, but all they caught was a handful of pebbles. Without aiming, he threw the stones at where he expected his captors to be, earning a kick in the nuts. Curled up to protect himself from further attack, he let himself be pulled the rest of the way. Nearby, there were vague sounds of Margo fighting back, but he couldn’t distinguish her words from the noises of everyone around them. 

The deafening clang of a metal chair against concrete returned his focus to their imminent danger. He really was the worst person to be kidnapped with. With no discernible skills outside of the garden or the kitchen, he was of no use to anyone. It would have been better to be forgotten. Beyond fear, Josh accepted his fate and allowed himself to be tied up to the chair. His hands were bound together behind his back while his feet were strapped to the legs. Behind him, he could feel Margo thrashing her head about, her bound hands hitting against his own with just enough power to bruise him, but not enough to overpower their captors. 

“I will fucking end you when I get free,” Margo cursed, so loud that Josh could picture the spittle fly out of her mouth. 

“Sounds good, Margo. Won’t happen though.” A new, disturbingly familiar voice entered the room. “Tell me when you get the location of Quentin Coldwater out of them. Kill one of them if you need to.” Josh couldn’t place the voice but settled for filing it among the ever-increasing list of their enemies. 

The crash of a roller door hitting the ground signaled the exit of whoever it was that was calling the shots. Feet shuffled around them, but no one other than Margo spoke and her endless stream of colorful expletives was so vicious he couldn’t focus long enough to understand anything she said. 

“Surely you have a lighter or something,” Margo whispered between insults about the mothers of unseen henchmen. The words flew over his head at first, while his thoughts flickered between mental replays of Blade Runner and The Goonies. 

“Fire?” He said, far louder than he should have. A solid backhand slap left his cheek smarting. They weren’t messing around. 

To his dismay, his lighter was in his breast pocket, and there was no way he could reach it. Josh tried to think of anything he had ever read or watched that could help him, but no amount of 80s action and adventure helped; focusing on the escape of Indiana Jones and his father in the Last Crusade wasn’t going to miraculously move the lighter to his hands. From nowhere, his stomach groaned, so loud it dwarfed every other noise. Thinking about his favorite movies made him crave the requisite snacks; popcorn, ice cream, extremely rare steak. 

Bones creaking, Josh’s skin began to stretch. Every beat of his heart felt heavier than the last, and his lungs struggled to bring in enough air. “What day is it?” He asked, his voice hoarse and unsteady. “Margo, what day is it?”

“Fucked if I know,” she said, but her answer didn’t matter. 

Despite the cover over his eyes, Josh knew that the moon was full and had risen above them. This was worse than he remembered it being, but it couldn’t be anything else. His insides churned, and he screamed out in pain as his organs rearranged themselves. This was definitely worse. His mind flashed to a conversation with another version of himself, and his blood ran cold. 

“Promise me you’ll run,” he croaked at Margo.

“What, you’re going to save me?” She replied, the sarcasm in her voice painfully evident.

There was no time to deal with her skepticism. If it was as bad as he had been told, she needed to be as far away from him as humanly possible. He tore apart the ropes that bound him with ease. Still blinded by the pillowcase over his head, he grabbed at Margo’s wrists and sliced her bindings. Josh ripped the case off his head, before doing the same for Margo. 

“I said run.”

Hands no longer his own, Josh looked down to see they were covered in fur, his nails long, sharp and yellowed. Ahead of him, Margo looked into his eyes with fear and curiosity, before heeding his advice. 

A foreign grip held onto his shoulder, and Josh felt his fight instincts kick in for the first time in his life. He grabbed the chair he had so recently been tied to and swung it around, catching his attacker in the face. A rush of adrenaline replaced the cold feeling of his blood with a burning heat. Standing over the unconscious body, Josh felt more powerful than he had in his entire life. It was exhilarating. It was terrifying. 

A second attacker came up behind him, and before he could stop himself, Josh slashed at them. His long nails sliced through the exposed skin of his assailant's neck, and he felt the spray of hot, sticky blood on his face. They fell to the ground, body limp and lifeless. Tears streamed down his face and the realization of his action brought Josh to his knees. Dry heaving through heavy sobs, the changes in his body sped up. Every nerve in his body pulsed. He wailed out, his cries turning to howls as the transformation continued far beyond it had ever done before. 

The seams of his suit tore open. Shreds of cloth fell to the ground. The arms of his glasses snapped, rendering him blind, but his other senses were so heightened he didn’t need them anymore. Wolf brain taking over, the guilt and fear slipped away, and his primal instincts came to the front. More henchmen came towards him, fingers ready to perform spells to restrain him, only he wasn’t Josh anymore. He wasn’t the semi-helpless magician without access to magic. Hacking and slicing, he tore into his attackers, feeling them drop to the ground one by one. Arms and teeth worked together as deadly weapons. Limb from limb, he ripped them apart, until every one of them was a pile of mismatched body parts strewn about the blood-soaked concrete floor. 

It was impossible for him to tell where one victim ended and another began, but the intense hunger in his stomach told him that didn’t matter. They were all food now. Teeth bared, he dropped to all fours, ready to feed, when a traveler appeared before him. Josh raced forward, a rabid snarl on his face, ready to devour his new victim. The last thing he saw was the quick movement of a battle spell, though he was incapable of understanding the repercussions. Winded, his own body lacerated by the spell, he dropped mid-pounce, yelping in pain. Josh’s mind flashed between wolf and man until he passed out from blood loss. 

_(Cue ominous sounds to signal a return to the present)_

Shoot me in the heart with a silver bullet and bury me deep.

_As the sounds of yet more emergency sirens blare in the distance, it appears that Josh Hoberman has made his decision. He does not know if Margo lies among the pile of bodies that surround him and the guilt consumes him. He will never be the same again. As much wolf as he is man, survival is a selfish choice. He’s a monster. A murderer. A threat to everyone he cares about._

Fuck it. Let me die. 

_Stilettos echo through the room. Margo races towards Josh’s lifeless body and drops beside him._

_“Don’t you fucking die on me, you sack of shit,” Margo cries through what can only be described as furious sobs. “I got used to your candy-ass being in my life, and now you have to go be a martyr?” She thrashes her fists against his bloodied chest. “I’ve lost El and Q. I’m not losing you too.”_

No. Shit. I change my mind. I don’t want to die.

_Josh Hoberman feels his life slipping away. He has mere seconds to change his fate._

_“Does this make you a furry or a monsterfucker?” Josh jokes, making poor use of his last words._

_“Screw you,” Margo smiles, unaware that he is about to die._

I’m not. Fuck you Fake Serl. I’m going to live. 

_Gathering his strength, Josh summons the inherent magic of his virus. The werewolf DNA slowly repairs the damage of his wounds while Margo looks on helplessly. He feels the life return to his body as the blood refills his veins._

_The sun has risen, and the sky is clear. Sirens continue to blare in the distance, painfully loud in Josh’s canine enhanced ears. His whole body aches and his naked, unimpressive body remains limp. He is weak, useless and broken, but he is not dead._

_He should be._


End file.
